Laura Caldwell - Claim of Innocence

Mayburn listened. He leaned toward me when he seemed to need clarification; he nodded when he got it.

When I came to the end of what I knew about the case, I said, “That’s it, basically. Our client says she didn’t commit the crime. So far, she won’t say who did, or if she even knows who did. We don’t know if she’s lying, and Maggie tells me none of this matters. But I want to know. So I guess we need to look at everybody in the case. Everybody.”

“What if I dig up something bad about Valerie? Something that’s not out there yet? Do you have to tell Maggie?”

I chewed my bottom lip the way Maggie did when she was thinking hard. “I think so. But I’m not sure. I just know that I might have to take a backseat on the case or maybe get off it altogether if I don’t personally believe Valerie.”

“You sure you want to go down this road?”

The waitress delivered our food. We thanked her, but neither of us picked up our forks.

“I have to.” I nodded, then repeated, “I have to. Can we start with background checks on all the players?”

“Sure.” Mayburn pulled out a pen and a tiny notebook from his back jeans pocket. “Name ’em.”

“Bridget and Valerie and Amanda, the victim.” I thought about the photos the state had used during opening arguments. Amanda appeared to be the kind of person Maggie and I would be friends with. The fact that I was representing someone who had allegedly killed her was jarring. I needed to know the real story. “Zavy, the husband. They had a live-in nanny named Sylvia Zowinski.” I spelled her name for Mayburn. “And…” My voice trailed off as I thought hard. “Those seem to be the people who might know something.”

“If you can get social security numbers, the states they’ve lived in, birth dates, anything…” Mayburn said.

“I’ll collect what I can from Valerie and the police records. I’m going to be studying the records all weekend to get ready to cross Vaughn.”

“Detective Damon Vaughn?” That drew the first smile of the day from Mayburn. “I gotta be there to see that.”

“Monday morning.”

He gave a smile and a long nod. “If you give me Maggie’s files, I’ll read them and see what I can find.”

“There’s not much there. But hey, you’re the one who always says investigations are like puzzles, and you just have to start collecting the pieces, right?”

He raised his eyebrows with a grudgingly impressed expression. “I thought you didn’t listen to me.”

“I don’t listen to you when doing so will get me in trouble.”

He scoffed. “Like when?”

“Are you kidding? What about when you made me get into Lucy’s house and download Michael’s hard drive and Michael came home? There was no time for the series of checks you told me to run. I couldn’t listen to you.”

He chuckled a little. We looked at each other. I think both of us heard the words—Lucy, Michael—hanging there.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“How am I doing?” Mayburn echoed. “I am doing distinctly shitty.”

“Will you be okay?”

“No.” He said it simply, not like he was feeling sorry for himself, but rather like he was being matter-of-fact. “I’ve always wondered what was wrong with me, why I didn’t want to commit to someone before this.”

“You wanted to commit to that gallery owner you dated. What was her name?”

“Madeline Saga. I guess you’re right. I did want her to commit. I even bought my house in Lincoln Square hoping she’d move in. But in retrospect, I think I wanted that because she told me she didn’t. It was the ultimate challenge.”

I looked at Mayburn, at his sad face, his eyebrows drawn together. His skin appeared grayish now that I looked closer, as if he wasn’t hydrated.

“Have you been boozing?” I asked.

A sharp glare. “What do you think, McNeil? The love of my life left me. Yeah, I’ve been drinking. Wanna talk more about it?”

I shook my head, raised my hands in surrender. Mayburn’s show of emotion was unlike him, so much so that I suddenly felt a need to help. Aside from when he was with Lucy, Mayburn seemed happiest to me when he was involved with work. “Why don’t you do some investigating for me?”

“I am. You’ve got me on this poison case.”

“Yeah, I know. But I need you on something else. It’s Sam.”

His narrowed eyes went wide. “Your ex-fiancé, Sam? The one who disappeared?”

“He’s reappeared.”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s engaged now.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like much of a reappearance for you.”

“He said he’ll break off his engagement if I want.”

Now, Mayburn’s face turned to disbelief. “Are you telling me that you’ve got a boyfriend and you can get your other boyfriend back?”

I thought about it, agreeing that my situation probably was unhelpful when set up against his. “I’m a mess!” I said, which wasn’t exactly true. “More than anything, I’m confused,” I said, which was precisely true. “I need you to help me with…”

“With what?”

“I want to know how serious he is. About me. About Alyssa.”

“Well, ask him.”

“I will. But tell me what to look for. Tell me what to ask. You work on all these infidelity cases. I mean, c’mon!” My voice had risen. I realized then that I was anxious to make the right decision—Sam, Theo, or none of the above?

Mayburn’s face softened. “When are you seeing Sam next?”

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